-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- For Thomas Tugend , there was no doubt which side he was fighting for as a young infantryman in Europe in World War II . Actually , the choice was made for him in 1933 , when he was just a child .

Born in Germany , Tugend lived a comfortable , upper-middle class life in Berlin . His father , Gustav , was a loyal and patriotic German who had fought in World War I and was a decorated officer in the German army .

He was also a successful doctor , leaving Thomas with few worries during his childhood in Berlin . Like many of his schoolmates , Thomas was an avid soccer player who gave little thought to the political storm brewing around him .

Everything changed in 1933 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came to power . That the Tugend family was successful , educated and loyal Germans no longer meant anything . To the new German government , the Tugends were Jews -- and that was all that mattered .

Still , the family remained in a state on denial about the danger they faced because , as Thomas Tugend later said , `` for us , the oppression came gradually , not all at once . ''

The Tugend 's longtime nanny , a mother figure to young Thomas , was forced to leave because of a government edict prohibiting non-Jewish Germans from working in Jewish homes .

Then , Thomas ' father was told he could no longer treat non-Jewish patients . Shortly thereafter , the elder Tugend was summarily fired from his job in the pediatrics department of a prominent Berlin hospital .

As a result , the Tugend family was forced to move from their comfortable home to a poorer part of the city .

`` It was little things at first , and people would say , ` Well , we can live with that , ' and then another more stringent law would pass and people would say , ` This is n't ideal , but things will get better , ' '' Tugend said .

By 1937 , Tugend 's father had no illusions about what was happening . He left Germany for the United States via England with the help of old friends from an American Quaker group . The elder Tugend had worked with them on health issues related to childhood poverty in Germany after World War I . As soon as he was able , Thomas ' father sent for his family .

`` He told my mother to forget the furniture and pack up what she could and get out , '' Tugend said .

In May 1939 , Tugend , his sister and their mother entered the United States as refugees . Four months later , the Germans invaded Poland .

`` The reason so many German Jews did n't leave when they had the chance was because they could n't believe what was happening , '' Tugend said . `` They thought Hitler would get what he wanted and there would be no war and things would get back to normal . The Holocaust was unimaginable at the time . ''

Despite their escape , Tugend said his father was never the same . The whole experience `` broke him , spiritually and physically , '' he said .

By 1944 , the war was raging in Europe and 18-year-old Thomas was attending high school in the United States . He was raring to join the fight . And he admits his family 's tragic experience was only part of the motivation .

`` I could n't wait to get away from home , '' he said .

An adventurous spirit mixed with a touch of wanderlust led him to enlist in the U.S. Army .

`` Even then I knew the historical significance of the war and I wanted to be a part of it , '' he said . `` I had a personal reason to fight the Nazis that most Americans did n't . ''

Tugend was assigned to the Army 's 63rd Infantry Division . He was worried he might be shipped off to the Pacific , but fate was on his side -- Pvt. Thomas Tugend was sent to France , where he faced his former countrymen in battle .

Tugend said he tried not to dwell on the fact that he was fighting his former friends .

`` As long as I was just an infantryman , they were shooting at us , we were shooting at them , that 's all you think about , '' he said .

Once the Army found out Tugend spoke fluent German , his commanders created a new job for him . At the end of the war , Tugend was tasked with finding members of the Nazi party who were thought to be cooking up a post-war insurgency .

`` Every town and village I went to , '' Tugend said , `` I would be told , ` No , I 'm not a Nazi . But my neighbor , he 's a Nazi , ' and then the neighbor would say , ` No , no , no . I 'm not a Nazi . ' There was n't a Nazi left in Germany . ''

After some villagers led Tugend to an elderly blind man who was proud to admit his affiliation with the Nazi Party , Tugend returned to his headquarters and proclaimed , `` I found the only Nazi in Germany ! ''

Tugend may have harbored resentment toward the people who betrayed his family and allowed the murder of 6 million Jews , but on a personal , face-to-face level , he found it difficult to hate them .

`` You have to understand , the average German may have known what the Nazis were up to , but I think most of them were just trying to survive , '' he said .

`` You would go to some of these bombed-out villages and they had suffered so much , I could n't hate them . It was n't like they were the Goebbels or the Goerings . ... We had no pity for the SS . Those were the real bastards . ''

Tugend left the Army soon after the war 's end , but he was n't finished fighting . He joined the Israeli Army and led an anti-tank crew during the 1948 War of Independence .

He was later recalled by the U.S. Army to serve in the Korean War . Instead of going to the front lines , however , he was assigned to run an Army newspaper out of the Presidio in San Francisco .

Upon leaving the Army , he became a career journalist working for the San Francisco Chronicle and The Los Angeles Times , and as a science writer and a communications director at UCLA .

And age has n't stopped Tugend from pounding away at the keyboard . He still writes for several different publications , including The Jerusalem Post and The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles .

After all these years , Tugend is philosophical about his family 's escape from certain death at the hands of the Nazis , and his time as an infantryman at war .

`` There were a number of instances in my life where by all the odds I should have been killed , '' he said . `` It just gives me a sense of the utter random chance of life . ''

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Thomas Tugend fled Nazi Germany with his family for America

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At 18 , he enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight against his homeland

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After the war , he joined the Israeli Army and led an anti-tank crew

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He was later recalled by the U.S. Army to serve in the Korean War